AUBURN – The silver-bodied plane emerged from gray skies Tuesday at Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport to visit an old friend.

The newly restored Douglas DC-3 touched down in light rain and taxied in from the runway. Its dual propellers came to a stop outside the new hangar that houses the half-restored 52-year-old Lockheed Super Constellation.

A banner stretched across the hangar door welcoming the DC-3.

Francisco Agullo, who owns the 69-year-old commercial passenger plane, stepped onto the tarmac. He made his way to the hangar, anxious to glimpse the work in progress.

Agullo, who is Swiss, came to see the last propeller-driven commercial airliner as it is painstakingly reassembled by a crew from Lufthansa, the German airline that bought the vintage plane at auction from an Auburn man.

Agullo is a founding member of Super Constellation Flyers Association and a Boeing 757 captain. Also on board his DC-3 were a dozen members of his group. They had made the trip from Florida, where the aircraft had undergone the final phase of its restoration.

Agullo bought the plane six months ago for $300,000. Now, fully restored, it’s worth about $500,000, he said Tuesday during the short visit.

Although roughly 12,000 DC-3s were built, fewer than 100 are still flying, he said. He owns another, but it’s not in flying condition, he said.

He bought the plane in Plattsburg, N.Y. This was its maiden voyage. From Auburn, it continued Tuesday afternoon to Quebec City. On Wednesday, Agullo expects to head back to Switzerland, stopping for fuel and aviation enthusiasts along the way.

Agullo and his passengers toured the Super Constellation project and munched snacks in the hangar before resuming their flight.

Breitling, a high-end Swiss watch company that sponsors Agullo’s nonprofit group, owns one of the Super Constellations and is consulting on the Lufthansa project, said project manager Michael Austermeier. The group will train the Lufthansa pilots and crew of the Super Constellation.

Breitling was outbid by Lufthansa for the plane under reconstruction and another that still sits in a field nearby. But that did not stop the two companies from helping each other, Austermeier said.

“It’s like a family that works together,” he said.